http://autos.aol.c...e-shut-off-systems

Shael sent me this last night... This seems to be problematic to me.

The dealer where I bought my car will install them if the lender requests them. At delivery I had to sign and date a form stating that I had been informed that in my case a "GPS Unit" "has not been installed" in the vehicle. I asked about it having seen a news story about it in a few weeks earlier. The F&I man told me that the unit's that they used were very "Low key" with no visible hint of their presence.

I asked if they weren't supposed to beep and flash like the ones on TV?
He said "People are told about them before they agree to finance with a lender that would like them", and that the only clue to their presence a customer would have is that if they were more than five days late on a payment and the car wouldn't start then they would know why.

He went on to say the blinking, beeping dash mounted ones, the dealership felt would make people "Uncomfortable"

As I continued to read through and sign my title and registration paperwork I asked if a car be tracked by satellite.

He said that they could in fact be tracked and that in the last month the feature allowed the police to recover a car that had been outfitted with the GPS.

A man with what the F&I man called "Troubled teen foster kids" had his minivan (and $800) stolen by a foster kid. The van's owner called the dealership who then disabled the engine and gave the police the van's position.

He said the van was recovered undamaged along with $80 of the original $800.

...and I guess that's good...

WORSE:
http://news.zdnet....09_22-5982762.html

Tell them to fuck off if they want to put any tracking device in your car. That includes ONSTAR.

Posted by TheVicariousVadder WORSE: http://news.zdnet....09_22-5982762.html Tell them to fuck off if they want to put any tracking device in your car. That includes ONSTAR.

My truck has ONSTAR... and quite honestly, i'm glad it has it!

Posted by oddspot My truck has ONSTAR... and quite honestly, i'm glad it has it!

Wait till they start taxing you on your mileage and giving you speeding tickets based off what ONSTAR reports back.

A friend of mine has such a device in his vehicle and the only way he knows about it is because he was told while applying for a loan. One day though, his vehicle didn't start even though he made the payment on time. Turns out, the wrong vehicle was disabled. A phone call and five minutes later, he got an apology and the car was running.

Posted by TheVicariousVadder Wait till they start taxing you on your mileage and giving you speeding tickets based off what ONSTAR reports back.

And that's where the line should be drawn! They should be serving us, not the other way around.

I don't mind some form of communication when you need help but when it becomes abused, that's where a good thing becomes crap!

Limits are to be established and that's one of them.

Posted by TheVicariousVadder Wait till they start taxing you on your mileage and giving you speeding tickets based off what ONSTAR reports back.

taxing on distance driven - illegal
speeding tickets without having radar'd a vehicle - illegal


Do you live your entire life in fear of what the Government might do?
At the end of the day, we do have rights and freedoms, as this isn't North Korea. If distance was taxed, it would kill all commuters, all holiday travellers etc.... use your head.

Posted by oddspot taxing on distance driven - illegal speeding tickets without having radar'd a vehicle - illegal Do you live your entire life in fear of what the Government might do? At the end of the day, we do have rights and freedoms, as this isn't North Korea. If distance was taxed, it would kill all commuters, all holiday travellers etc.... use your head.

Oregon DOT proposed an back in 2007 to replace the gas tax with a variable tax rate per vehicle calculated by GPS logging each time you fill up at the pump. The logging unit would only tax you for distances traveled in Oregon only and would transmit its information to the gas pump each time you fillup. It would either give you a discount over the standard gas tax or charge you more differing on it use.

My concern before the idea got canned was regarding what identification did it use to identify to the pump. Talking to my state senator, I found out that it would just use your license plate as identification which I had no problem with.
For a vehicle that traveled 12,000 miles a year at 35 MPG, it would cost $144 in taxes over the course of fillups roughly.

It basically got canned due to the fact that while ODOT was able to build a prototype unit for testing, they could not find a electronics manufacturer willing to make a product that would be universal to all cars. Then there was the issue of gas stations not wanting to pay themselves for the hardware on pumps among other things. I think the final blow was the fact that most of the wear and tear on Oregon highways are from trucks not cars, so there's a proposal to change how trucks are taxed so its equal.

I do think we need to change how we are taxed for fuel, but this is kind of a wacky way to go about it.

Onstar is designed so that it only sends data based upon an event or an OnStar operator initiates the request such as when the car is stolen. And MVEDR actually can't be accessed by OnStar period as the whole IEEE spec is designed for it to be a read at the service shop.

As for these Car Payment shut off remote switches, I'm wondering how the signal is sent to it and if it taps off the power from the battery. The only thing I can think of is that it works like LoJack and a activate signal is sent out. It can't be celluar because that would require a beefy battery and or tapping off your car battery.

Posted by oddspot taxing on distance driven - illegal speeding tickets without having radar'd a vehicle - illegal Do you live your entire life in fear of what the Government might do? At the end of the day, we do have rights and freedoms, as this isn't North Korea. If distance was taxed, it would kill all commuters, all holiday travellers etc.... use your head.

Paranoia? I doubt the distance driven really would go through...but the tickets? That is a real possibility.

There is no law ...yet, that prevents the state/government from ticketing you based off what the GPS says. It could even be pre-programmed to know what speed limits are on certain roads (my tom-tom already does, on major highways only) and then send a signal with your information on it to the nearest police station which would automatically mail you a ticket. If personal privacy laws failed to go through (which they probably would...it's already been ruled that you have no right to privacy on public roads) It would be very hard to dispute a ticket such as this.

But as Bruce Schneier says: "A system must be designed with security in mind; not just tacked on as an afterthought..." Though he was talking about computers; it's the same idea. Even if they were to put a tracking device inside the vehicle and wire it to the engine. You could easily remove it; because it wasn't designed as an original part of the system. They would have to redesign the way cars work.

But then again they may pass a law saying you have to have the GPS system in place, regardless of which vehicle you drive. Truly at this point, is when you say "fuck the government."

Posted by TheVicariousVadder Paranoia? I doubt the distance driven really would go through...but the tickets? That is a real possibility. There is no law ...yet, that prevents the state/government from ticketing you based off what the GPS says. It could even be pre-programmed to know what speed limits are on certain roads (my tom-tom already does, on major highways only) and then send a signal with your information on it to the nearest police station which would automatically mail you a ticket. If personal privacy laws failed to go through (which they probably would...it's already been ruled that you have no right to privacy on public roads) It would be very hard to dispute a ticket such as this. But as Bruce Schneier says: "A system must be designed with security in mind; not just tacked on as an afterthought..." Though he was talking about computers; it's the same idea. Even if they were to put a tracking device inside the vehicle and wire it to the engine. You could easily remove it; because it wasn't designed as an original part of the system. They would have to redesign the way cars work. But then again they may pass a law saying you have to have the GPS system in place, regardless of which vehicle you drive. Truly at this point, is when you say "fuck the government."

In a interesting twist, there was a case where a driver got a ticket for speeding 20 MPH over, but his GPS showed he was driving within limits along with the speedometer. He showed the logs from his GPS in the case and the ticket was dropped!

Posted by oddspot taxing on distance driven - illegal speeding tickets without having radar'd a vehicle - illegal

The UK government is already doing experiments in taxing on distance driven based on the "black box" computer systems in vehicles. They've also decided to push for it to be installed on every vehicle and they've even started to demand that these GPS systems be placed in every vehicle in the country, even if they aren't activated. It's like the DRM software in Vista that's just waiting to be turned on with a patch. It's the same thing. The government then only needs to demand that all vehicles go in for a firmware or flash update to the black box's programming, it turns it on and you end up paying taxes on the miles you drive. Also...they want another "minor" update to the software...a kill switch for the engine. One that will not let you start the vehicle if you don't pay your taxes on the distance you've already driven. It works, I've seen and heard all about it.

It's going on, whether you want it to or not and if the UK starts it, we could be next.

It disturbs me, not because I'm worried about ever getting one of those devices, it disturbs me that someone can potentially track every movement I make, even when I'm paying for the luxury of the vehicle I bought and making the payments on time. I signed my name, I keep my promises.

It's basic human nature to snoop, whether the snooping is for the right reason or the wrong, and the fact that someone can snoop on me, even when I don't do a damn thing wrong infringes on my "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." At least I think so.

If a bank wants to keep track of "Their" property, they're welcome to call me and get my daily schedule so they can know where it is if they really wanna know. They don't need to spy, I'll tell them willingly.

Shael

Posted by Agent Skelly In a interesting twist, there was a case where a driver got a ticket for speeding 20 MPH over, but his GPS showed he was driving within limits along with the speedometer. He showed the logs from his GPS in the case and the ticket was dropped!

I know my GPS is only accurate to 15m which does give me readings about 1-3 under my speedometer, depending how fast I am going. The cop may have laser-ed the wrong vehicle; which has happened before.

getting back to the original concept, what is to stop someone from removing the device from their wiring harness? A car's electrical system is not rocket science and a device such as this would be wired into the very obvious ignition system or fuel injection system... why these? Because the invade space in an OBD II computer is not feasible for a tacked-on afterthought.

So it goes without saying that someone out there has removed one of these devices, or disabled it to the point where it can no longer disable the car.

when you build a better mousetrap, the mouse goes to a gearhead with an imagination.

Posted by Samurai getting back to the original concept, what is to stop someone from removing the device from their wiring harness? A car's electrical system is not rocket science and a device such as this would be wired into the very obvious ignition system or fuel injection system... why these? Because the invade space in an OBD II computer is not feasible for a tacked-on afterthought. So it goes without saying that someone out there has removed one of these devices, or disabled it to the point where it can no longer disable the car. when you build a better mousetrap, the mouse goes to a gearhead with an imagination.

The only thing stopping you is if they integrate it with the system, where it can't be started without it. That's what the UK is trying to do with their little system. If you don't have the device installed, the car won't start. That's how they're planning on getting around it. Unless you can trick it into thinking it's still there, of course, by hacking it.

Shael

Posted by Samurai getting back to the original concept, what is to stop someone from removing the device from their wiring harness? A car's electrical system is not rocket science and a device such as this would be wired into the very obvious ignition system or fuel injection system... why these? Because the invade space in an OBD II computer is not feasible for a tacked-on afterthought. So it goes without saying that someone out there has removed one of these devices, or disabled it to the point where it can no longer disable the car. when you build a better mousetrap, the mouse goes to a gearhead with an imagination.

Exactly. They would have to build the car around the system; program it into the computer itself, for it to be near fool proof (I say near because nothing is ever fool proof). The car was first designed to work without it; it'd be awfully hard to put something into the vehicle that could not be removed.

This gives me more and more reason to rebuild my next car from the ground up.

Posted by Shael The only thing stopping you is if they integrate it with the system, where it can't be started without it. That's what the UK is trying to do with their little system. If you don't have the device installed, the car won't start. That's how they're planning on getting around it. Unless you can trick it into thinking it's still there, of course, by hacking it. Shael

this will never happen, Shael.
Cars are not aircraft. You cannot, and I can't stress this enough, pull something like this off and not expect backlash or someone coming up with a way to either disable it or fool it. The problem is that most people know absolutely dick about how a car works, how the different systems interact... they just don't care. The more you know about an automobile, the more you realize that schemes are just not feasible, especially under real world conditions.

A few years ago, GM got it's collective ass in legal hot water by installing 'black boxes' in certain cars to gather real world details about how their cars were performing. None of the customers were informed that their vehicles had these monitoring items in them, until a picky Corvette owner noticed something on his Vette that was out of the ordinary. Eventually, he got his dealer to admit that his car was one of a few hundred (or thousand... I don't recall how many vehicles were affected) that were being monitored by GM for real world testing. The man was furious and sued. GM had to disclose to each owner that their car was being monitored... and gave the owners the option to have it removed. If I remember right, most of the owners either had it removed, or demanded another car.

And it wasn't just high end cars and trucks... Everything from a Cavalier to a Hummer was being monitored. On one hand, I can see how real world data could be used to build better cars, but on the other hand, owners of these cars should've been informed that they were being unpaid test vehicles...

Posted by Samurai And it wasn't just high end cars and trucks... Everything from a Cavalier to a Hummer was being monitored. On one hand, I can see how real world data could be used to build better cars, but on the other hand, owners of these cars should've been informed that they were being unpaid test vehicles...

Fuck they should have gotten half off on the new car price, at least. I wouldn't mind my automaker monitoring the car for performance, if there were no penalties from it. I'd rather have the automaker monitor it; the worst they could do is tell me they won't cover my warranty cause I drive too crazy. And then I'd trade that thing in for the same price I paid. Buy another brand.

I'd be a good candidate for it too. I'd push the car harder than their average driver; but not do something fucking ridiculous with it.

If the data was kept confidential. I'd be happy to let the automaker monitor me; granted I got something in return.

There's no way... no way to pull it off!

Imagine the storage, computers, monitoring stations etc.... it would take to do that on a mass scale.
besides... it's one thing to know how fast a vehicle is travelling... which can be calculated by the vehicle itself. It's a much more difficult thing to add what the posted speed limit is on any given road.... and is your max speed exceeding it.

the technology simply could not be implemented on a mass scale, anywhere for any reasonable amount of money and be consistent and accurate enough to work, and/or stand up in a court of law as proof .... or benefit anyone for that matter.